00:00We're moving to the UK next, where Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Manchester, will today become
00:05prime minister, taking over from Sir Keir Starmer. Burnham is also expected to name his cabinet
00:10members today. For more, I'm joined live now by Tim Bale, who is a politics professor at Queen
00:16Mary University of London. Tim, really good to have you with us this morning. So listen, Burnham
00:22is promising big change, the biggest change in UK politics in 40 years, he says. How crucial will
00:28his cabinet appointments now be in setting the tone for his government and ensuring he
00:33hits the ground running? Well, I think you're right to say they will set the tone. There's
00:38been quite a lot of speculation over the weekend and indeed the last week, particularly about
00:43the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, the key finance ministerial position. It looks
00:48like it's slipped away from Andy Burnham's key ally, Ed Miliband, who is seen by some to
00:55risk spooking the markets, to coin that cliche, and instead go to Shabana Mahmood, who is seen
01:01to be more on the right of the Labour Party and probably will cause a few eruptions in the
01:09market. That means Ed Miliband will probably go to Foreign Secretary. But it is absolutely
01:14clear that he does have to signal a departure from what's gone on before. Otherwise, in some
01:21ways, there is no point replacing Keir Starmer with someone else. So yes, today will be very
01:27important. You don't get a second chance to create a first impression. So everything about
01:32today, the choreography and indeed the choreography for the next week, I think, will be absolutely
01:37crucial.
01:37You mentioned the importance of the Chancellor and this resetting what many would call a
01:43broken economy. But he's also prioritising this push for more devolution or the idea
01:49of delegating power to the regions, even creating a number 10 north, he says. How much of a shift
01:55in thinking is this for a UK Prime Minister?
01:58I'm not sure it's as big a shift as people think, actually. Prime Ministers for a long time,
02:03whether they be Conservative or Labour, have been talking about the over-centralisation of the
02:10UK and particularly the over-centralisation of the UK economy. Even under the Conservatives,
02:16you saw an outpost of the Treasury being created in Darlington in the north-east of the country.
02:22So in some ways, I think this is more about mood music than it is necessarily about substance.
02:28That said, obviously, given that some of our more peripheral regions feel that they have
02:35been left out from whatever growth there has been in the British economy, it is important
02:40that we spread the wealth out from the south-east and London, where it is at the moment concentrated.
02:46And that obviously has a particular knock-on effect for the kind of jobs that are available
02:51in those areas. So I think devolution is important, but I don't think it is the magic bullet that some,
02:57and indeed possibly Andy Burnham, suggest it is.
03:00Very, very briefly, Tim, if I may, just to close, we're watching intently here from Brussels,
03:05of course. Do you expect a big shift in Burnham's EU and foreign policy compared to the Starmer
03:11government?
03:13Very briefly, no. Strong support for Ukraine, trying to handle an erratic US president and trying to move
03:20towards closer relationships with the EU, but in some ways, unfortunately, not really making a big
03:26move on the single market or the customs union. There'll just be incremental moves until possibly
03:30the next parliament if Burnham gets re-elected.
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